East Texas Community Chorus seeks new members

The East Texas Community Chorus is opening its membership again this fall to community members with singing experience and the desire to participate in an exciting fall season.

Rehearsals begin on Monday, August 18 from 7-9 p.m. in the choir room of First United Methodist Church of Longview. The chorus is nonauditioned and interested singers with a strong desire to learn and perform challenging choral music are encouraged to attend the first rehearsal.

In its eighth season, the ETCC continues to present notable and inspired performances of choral repertoire. Recent masterworks concerts featured collaborative performances of Requiems by Mozart and Duruflé, Beethoven's Mass in C, and Charpentier's Te Deum with the Kilgore College Chorale; culture-focus concerts recently highlighted "Music from the Movies" and "Irish Folk Songs and American Spirituals."

Ryan Kelly is the director of the ETCC and is also Director of Choral Activities at Kilgore College.

The ETCC's fall season concert is titled "A Traveler's Cristemas" and will feature holiday music programmed around a "traveling" theme. Music to be performed will include selections from Great Britain, Spain, and the Americas, and will include settings of "travelthemed" pieces such as I Saw Three Ships, Sleigh Ride, and Rise Up, Shepherds and Follow. The concert will be in December.

Carols and Lullabies - Christmas in the Southwest by Conrad Susa will be the featured work performed on the concert, a composition uniquely set for chorus, harp, guitar, and marimba. The carols presented are influenced heavily by Spanish and Catalonian traditions and feature both languages along with English texts. Chorus director Kelly selected the work to be part of the concert program after becoming captivated with the piece's orchestration and distinctive texts. "Conrad Susa's Christmas in the Southwest is an enchanting Christmas work that sounds unlike many other holiday pieces because of its mixture of languages and instruments. It's a beautiful and festive work that represents our East Texas culture with a mix of Southern and Southwestern traditions."

For more information about joining the East Texas Community Chorus, contact Ryan Kelly at 903-983-8122 or by e-mail at rkelly@kilgore.edu. The ETCC is sponsored by Kilgore College.